Original articleParents’ Perspectives Regarding a Physician-Parent Conference after Their Child’s Death in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
Section snippets
Setting
The Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network (CPCCRN) established by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development consists of six clinical centers and a data coordinating center.17 Pediatric intensive care physicians have primary responsibility for the care of all medical patients and routinely provide consultation on surgical patients in the PICU at each center.
Participants
Parents or legal guardians were eligible to participate if their child died in the PICU at one of the
Results
Parents of 161 deceased children were sent letters explaining the study; 56 parents of 48 children (30% of families) were interviewed, parents of 33 children (20%) refused, and parents of 79 children (49%) could not be contacted by telephone. One mother (1%) agreed to participate and was interviewed, but the recording device malfunctioned and the interview was lost (Table I, Table II). Parents were interviewed a median of 8 months (range, 4-15 months) after their child’s death. Five interviews
Discussion
Our findings indicate that many parents want to meet with their child’s intensive care physician to discuss the death of their child, and they are willing to return to the hospital to do so. However, our findings also indicate that such meetings rarely occur. Some parents wanted to meet with the physician early after the death, whereas others preferred to wait until the distress of acute grief had begun to subside. Parents envisioned the conference to be a small personal meeting with the
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The study was funded by cooperative agreements from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Department of Health and Human Services (U10HD050096, U10HD049981, U10HD500009, U10HD049945, U10HD049983, U10HD050012 and U01HD049934).
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The list of members of the NICHHD Collaborative Pediatric Critical Care Research Network is available at www.jpeds.com.